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Tomato Juice - Canning

Total Time

4hrs

Prep 2 hrs

Cook 2 hrs

Ok...Here's THE recipe for canning tomato juice that doesn't separate. Just like store bought tomato juice. The trick is to bring the juice to a rolling boil again AFTER you have run it through your food mill. I usually juice around 2-3 bushels of tomatoes per year. In order to get that 'Store Bought' consistency, mix your tomatoes 50/50 roma and regular. So I always buy a bushel of romas and a bushel of regular. This year we bought 2 bushels each and have lots of juice for the year.
This recipe should yield around 15 quarts/litres in general.

Directions

Core and peel tomatoes (Often, the day before, I will wash and core the tomatoes and freeze them first. Then just dunk them in a sink full of hot water and the peel falls right off). UPDATE: This year I didn't even bother to peel them, just core them and continue. The peel will come out in step 4.

Place the tomatoes in a large stock pot and as you fill it, bring them to a rolling boil, stirring regularly (They will burn if you don't). I usually squish the first few with a potato masher to cover the bottom of the stock pot with liquid in order to get the boiling process kick started.

Sterilize your jars (I do this in the dishwasher).

Once you have all your tomatoes in the stock pot and boiling up a storm, ladle them into your food mill and grind out the mixture into pots, scraping the good stuff off the sides of the cone into your juice.

Throw out the remaining pulp and return the juice to the stock pot.

Bring back to a rolling boil.

Add salt. (I usually add 1 tsp to each litre/quart). This is optional of course.

This was so fast and easy! I used cherry tomaotes and big beef. I don't really care about the thickness. I have a wonderful food mill that takes all the skins and seeds right out, so this was a super fast recipe. I had no problem with the jars sealing either. They sealed almost right away! I did add 2 tbs of lemon juice per quart because it's a preservative. Thanks to some advice from my recipe zaar buddies. I will be using this recipe the rest of the growing season! Thanks for posting!

I made tomatoe juice for the first time this summer, and I was able to accomplish the store bought consistency, but your ideas of either freezing to remove peels, or to just skip the peeling process and run through the sieve, sure beats the heck out of par-boiling, removing scalding hot skins, then cooking, then mashing yada-yada like I did. I'll try it your way next year. Thanks for sharing.